Mind-Body discussions are all about how a transcendent mind might control the body with which it is associated.On a grander scale is the idea of Mind-Matter in which the mind controls matter in the universe.This is not a favorite topic of many scientists, inasmuch as it puts their experimental protocols at risk, i.e. all the brilliant work they’ve thus far conjured up may be fatally flawed!Their experiments which may have depended upon an observer not influencing the results, would be just so much barn carpeting if in fact the observer had, perhaps inadvertently, skewed the results.

Unfortunately for such Separatists, the universe is connected, including mind and matter.Dean Radin’s Consciousness Research Laboratory <http://www.psiresearch.org/research.html>, for example, has noted experiences which “suggest the presence of a deep interconnectedness among all things.”These experiences are typically labeled telepathy, clairvoyance, remote viewing, precognition, and psychokinesis (i.e. ESP), and “have been reported throughout history, across all cultures, and at all educational and socio-economic levels.”“Historical persistence of these phenomena suggests the scientific understanding of basic concepts like mind, matter, space and time may be incomplete, possibly in fundamental ways.” Duh.

The Fifth Element and Connective Physics -- along with intelligent interpretations of Quantum Physics -- demonstrate that the universe is connected.Not just the electrons and atoms, but everything.This includes minds, even if the minds of physicists are often loath to consider such esoteric subjects.David Bohm’s work, in particular, demonstrates the interconnectedness of matter and consciousness, while rational explanations of the links between Consciousness and Physics in general -- from the results of Wave-Particle Duality to Quantum Knowing -- all contribute to the connection.

The tendency of many mainstream scientists to assume mind-matter events as being completely explained by a combination of delusion, coincidence, wishful thinking, or perceptual and/or cognitive distortions is an example of the age-old preference for burying one’s head in the sand at the inception of paradigm shaking evidence.As Radin has pointed out, “The modern view of the physical universe, as expressed in well-accepted physical theories and verified by experiments, allows for far-from-common-sense concepts like non-locality and the relativity of space and time.In fact, the physical universe, as best as we presently understand it, seems to support the very types of space-time anomalies that would be required for genuine psychic phenomena.”

Radin, for example, <http://www.psiresearch.org/research.html> has conducted mind-matter interaction experiments with living systems as the remote "targets" for mind-matter interaction effects, typically in the context of distant healing.Using conventional scientific protocols, results have indicated “that distant mental influence of the human body does occur in the laboratory under well-controlled conditions.”Curiously, with inanimate systems, "group mind" effects have been found to “play a role in modulating mind-matter interactions, [such] that there appears to be a ‘field consciousness’ effect when groups of people direct their focus on a common object.”This same result has been shown by many others in “spoon-bending” exercises.I.e. “with a little help from my friends...”

Radin has also found strong evidence that “just as people can apparently affect others at a distance by simply thinking about them, people can apparently affect their own physiology through time.This includes some aspects of intuitive hunches (especially visceral hunches associated with threats or danger), unconscious physiological responses to future events, and conscious precognition.

From an environmental standpoint, Radin’s results have indicated “that changes in weather, geomagnetic fluctuations, lunar cycle, and possibly tidal effects do significantly correlate with many aspects of human behavior, including lottery and casino payouts.In particular, these analyses suggest that at least some of the folklore associated with the moon may manifest in real-world contexts, including in the casino.”I.e. the “bottom line” is that there’s money to be made by the light of the moon!

“We experience the world with beautiful immediacy, and with a quality of direct participation that seems completely natural.And yet it is quite magical.We take meaning from music, we know our loved ones from afar, and we leap in thought to the stars. Sometimes we sense that we have dissolved ourselves into a group or a larger whole.And we always have prayed as if it mattered.The mind's reach remains a mystery in scientific terms, but research on the extraordinary range of consciousness indicates that we may have direct communication links with each other, and that our intentions can have effects in the world despite physical barriers and separations. We are compelled by good evidence to accept correlations that we cannot yet explain.It appears that Consciousness may sometimes produce something that resembles, at least metaphorically, a nonlocal field of meaningful information.

“The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) takes this possibility as a starting point for a speculation that such fields generated by individual consciousness would interact and combine, and ultimately have a global presence.”“To study the effects of a possible global consciousness, [they] have created a world-spanning network of devices sensitive to coherence and resonance in the mental domain. Continuous streams of data are sent over the Inter Net to be archived and correlated with events that may evoke a world-wide consciousness. Examples that appear to have done so include both peaceful gatherings and disasters: a few minutes around midnight on any New Years Eve, the first hour of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, the Papal visit to Israel, a variety of global meditations, several major earthquakes, and” more recently, 9-11-2001.

Interestingly, the Pentagon has looked into the possibilities of mind-matter interactions, if only because a genuine effect might be important for national security.Separate review committees, from 1981 to 1995, looked into the matter.As Dean Radin recounts in The Conscious Universe [Harper Edge], the Congressional Research Service in 1981, came to the conclusion that "Recent experiments in remote viewing and other studies in parapsychology suggest that there exists an ‘interconnectiveness’ of the human mind with other minds and with matter. This interconnectiveness would appear to be functional innature and amplified by intent and emotion."[emphasis added]

Meanwhile, the Army Research Institute in 1985 reported that, "The bottom line is that the data reviewed in [this] report constitute genuine scientific anomalies for which no one has an adequate explanation or set of explanations....If they are what they appear to be, their theoretical (and, eventually, their practical) implications are enormous."

In a 1995 report of the American Institutes for Research, statistician Jessica Utts of the University of California, Davis, one of the two principal reviewers, concluded that, “The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research… have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud…. It is recommended that future experiments focus on understanding how this phenomenon works, and on how to make it as useful as possible. There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof….”

The inevitable conclusion that one can take to the bank is that the mind-matter interactions are a reality.Minds are connected, even if the connection may sometimes seem like a lot of static is on the line.But such lack of clarity is more often the result of distractions and barriers in one or other of the minds in question.It’s not the mind link that’s at fault, but more likely the transceivers at each end.You can have the best and fastest Inter Net connection, but if you’re still using an ancient computer with a storage of say 16 Mega bytes, then...guess what?